UK pledges “fastest” broadband in Europe

news One of the key politicians responsible for delivering telecommunications policy in the UK delivered a major speech overnight pledging to deliver UK residents the “fastest” broadband of any major European country by 2015, through a range of initiatives combining fibre to the home, fibre to the node and wireless technologies.

“Getting the plumbing right for our digital economy is not just an advantage to consumers – it is also essential for our digital and creative industries, all of whom need reliable high speed networks to develop and export their products as they move large digital files around the world,” Hunt said. “Get this wrong and we will compromise all of their futures. Get it right and we can be Europe’s technology hub, bringing together the best of Hollywood and Silicon Valley in one country with huge competitive advantage in both content and technology.”

To support the UK’s digital ambitions, Hunt said, in his very first speech as Secretary in May 2010, he had said that he wanted the UK to have the “best” superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015. However, the politician added, it had become clear over the past several years that to be “the best”, you need to be the “fastest”.

“So I am today announcing an ambition to be not just the best, but specifically the fastest broadband of any major European country by 2015,” he said.

“My nightmare is that when it comes to broadband we could make the same mistake as we made with high speed rail. When our high speed rail network opens from London to Birmingham in 2026 it will be 45 years after the French opened theirs, and 62 years after the Japanese opened theirs. Just think how much our economy has been held back by lower productivity for over half a century. We must not make the same short-sighted mistake.”

Currently, the UK is taking a number of initiatives to upgrade its national telecommunications networks. Firstly, and primarily, incumbent telco BT is upgrading its copper network using the so-called ‘fibe to the node’ or ‘fibre to the cabinet’ technology which the Coalition is proposing to deploy in Australia through Telstra’s existing copper network. This deployment will provide speeds of up to 80Mbps to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014.

The UK model is also progressing via a subsidy approach which is seeing the Government fund specific areas of infrastructure rollout in coalition with the private sector. And there are other initiatives under way Fujitsu, for example, is also planning to deploy fibre to around five million rural premises in Britain, in collaboration with several partners such as Virgin and Cisco Systems. The country is also proceeding with wireless spectrum auctions which are slated to unlock 4G mobile broadband speeds in the UK as Telstra and Optus are rolling out in Australia.

However, Hunt said the Government’s ambitions were not limited to the current tranche of broadband technologies. “We simply will not have a competitive broadband network unless we recognise the massive growth in demand for higher and higher speeds,” he said. Consequently, Hunt said he viewed fibre to the node/cabinet as only a short to medium term solution, referring to an earlier report by the UK’s House of Lords into the matter.

“Whilst I am talking about the House of Lords report, let me address a further misunderstanding,” he said. “They suggest that fibre to the cabinet is the sum of the government’s ambitions. They are wrong. Where fibre to the cabinet is the chosen solution it is most likely to be a temporary stepping stone to fibre to the home – indeed by 2016 fibre to the home will be available on demand to over two thirds of the population.”

“But where their Lordships are wrong is to say my focus is on any particular speed: today’s superfast is tomorrow’s superslow. Just as the last government was wrong to hang its hat on 2 Mbps speeds, we must never fall into the trap of saying any speed is “enough.””

Consequently, Hunt said he had introduced a program for “ultrafast” broadband in cities which would offer speeds of 80-100Mbps “and more”. “And we will continue to develop policy to ensure that the highest speeds technology can deliver are available to the largest number of people here in the UK,” he said.

Despite the similarities in rhetoric around broadband speeds between politicians in the UK and in Australia, Hunt stopped short of backing direct government investment in national fibre broadband infrastructure to the home, as the Federal Labor Government is currently doing with the National Broadband Network project.

“The reason we are backing fibre to the cabinet as a potential medium-term solution is simple: the increase in speeds that it allows – 80 Mbps certainly but in certain cases up to 1 gigabit – will comfortably create Europe’s biggest and most profitable high speed broadband market,” he said. “And in doing so we will create the conditions whereby if fibre to the home is still the best way to get the very highest speeds, private sector companies will invest to provide it.”

“Let’s look at the alternative: if the state were to build a fibre to the home network now, it would potentially cost more than £25 bn. It would also take the best part of a decade to achieve. We will get there far more cheaply – and far more quickly – by harnessing the entrepreneurialism of private sector broadband providers than by destroying their businesses from a mistaken belief that the state can do better.”

opinion/analysis
Hunt’s comments remind me very strongly of the approach taken by the Howard Government to telecommunications policy in the years before Labor swept to power with Kevin Rudd. At that stage, Communications Minister Helen Coonan had a strong focus on supporting the commercial telecommunications sector to boost broadband speeds in Australia, through subsidies in rural areas and using the regulatory process to get Telstra to further open up its copper network for wholesale access (which BT has done in the UK with pretty strong separation).

That approach was short-circuited by the suggestion in late 2005 by then-Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo that the Government directly subsidise Telstra to upgrade its existing copper network to utilise the fibre to the node technology which the Coalition is proposing today — creating a “national broadband network”. Then-Shadow Communications Minister Stephen Conroy took that ball and ran with it all the way to the election, gradually creating the concept we know today as the NBN.

Coonan’s approach had a lot of positives. For starters, it is an undeniable fact that broadband competition was resulting in better outcomes for consumers throughout the early years of the 2000’s — primarily through the installation of competitive ADSL2+ infrastructure in telecommunications exchanges. And the rural subsidies did indeed result in thousands of Australians getting affordable access to satellite broadband speeds. The OPEL project — consisting of rural wireless and ADSL infrastructure — still lives on in a similar form as the wireless component of Labor’s NBN vision.

However, I don’t think Coonan quite understood the frustration which the general electorate had with the speed of change in broadband. At that stage there were quite a lot of broadband blackspots out there, and many Australians couldn’t get affordable broadband of any stripe. The NBN project tapped into the popular demand for positive change at that stage.

The UK Government is currently taking a much more conservative approach to its national telecommunications policy than the Australian Government. It’s doing this because it can afford to. In the UK, BT was separated back in 2006, with its network assets being managed now by a separate division dubbed Openreach. In part because of this separation — agreed upon by the Government — the company was able to confidently go ahead with its national FTTN upgrade, as it had regulatory certainty from the Government as to how its infrastructure would be treated in future.

If BT hadn’t been separated and Openreach created, I suspect BT would not be upgrading its network to FTTN right now, and the UK Government would be facing the same sorts of issues which the Labor Federal Government (and possibly the Coalition, after the next election) face in Australia — principally, the separation of Telstra, which the NBN is a vehicle for.

In short, Hunt can afford to make grandstanding claims about the UK getting the “fastest” broadband in Europe. Because most of that work was done before he and the current Conservative/Liberal democrat coalition ever came to power. That’s a luxury which Australia’s politicians do not currently enjoy, when it comes to telecommunications policy. In Australia, we’re still trying to structurally separate our incumbent, former monopolist telco, from its network infrastructure. That’s a task they managed in Britain most of a decade ago.

27 COMMENTS

Poor Turnbull. First he preached we should follow NZ example with their FTTN but went quiet when they switched to FTTP. Then recently praised UK with their FTTN effort but now we learn they want to switch to FTTP as soon as possible as well.

“Where fibre to the cabinet is the chosen solution it is most likely to be a temporary stepping stone to fibre to the home – indeed by 2016 fibre to the home will be available on demand to over two thirds of the population”

So the UK will have a FTTH network available to the majority of its population by 2016? Wow. Why are they bothering in investing in FTTN at all? I suppose it means higher density areas will get FTTH in short order but that lower density areas may have to make do with FTTN for quite a long time?

“My nightmare is that when it comes to broadband we could make the same mistake as we made with high speed rail. When our high speed rail network opens from London to Birmingham in 2026 it will be 45 years after the French opened theirs, and 62 years after the Japanese opened theirs. Just think how much our economy has been held back by lower productivity for over half a century. We must not make the same short-sighted mistake.”

He also said “Firstly, and primarily, incumbent telco BT is upgrading its copper network using the so-called ‘fibe to the node’ or ‘fibre to the cabinet’ technology which the Coalition is proposing to deploy in Australia through Telstra’s existing copper network. This deployment will provide speeds of up to 80Mbps to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014”.

So, does that mean it will take an extra two years for people in the UK just to have the option to pay more to install/upgrade from FTTN to FTTP? Why would that be?

Cheers. Guess I missed those details in amongst all that rhetoric about having the fastest broadband in Europe and not being short-sighted in their approach.

This bit in particular is misleading: “The reason we are backing fibre to the cabinet as a potential medium-term solution is simple: the increase in speeds that it allows – 80 Mbps certainly but in certain cases up to 1 gigabit – will comfortably create Europe’s biggest and most profitable high speed broadband market,” he said.

1Gbps over copper? Not likely. He goes on to imply that FTTH installed by the private sector is what he’s referring to there, in which case why is his government trying to take credit for that?

1 gigbit over copper, I raised my eyebrows over that one too, to me they have gone down the same track as their railway and hit a dead end, hes trying to talk his way out of it by portraying it as a rosey outcome. If you read my other post at the bottom and click on the link. Theres a article by the ex CTO of BT the company that installed this mess, titled FTTN a Hugh Mistake by Peter Cochrane. and some of the local councils are refusing BT ot installing the street cabinets, they say they are ugly.

Like MikeK says sort of, is that BT are currently trialling I believe ‘Fibre on Demand’, where you can be them a fee to have actual fibre run directly to your home from the cabinet. There’s a bit more info here:

So ‘available’ to the UK doesn’t really mean everyone has it. It means if you want it, you can pay an install fee in areas where VDSL2 is already available. That article estimates £500 to £1500 – very very not cheap when BT Infinity (aka BT’s VDSL2 product) is only £38/month inc line rental.

FWIW, I’m in SW London and have Infinity over here and it’s pretty good. Attainable rate is 90Mb/33Mb, sync is 80/20. First hop latency is about 5ms, but funny routing means I get about 20ms to London. Stability is excellent. The routing issue is basically the only downside and is pretty much unrelated to the last-mile technology part of things.

“That article estimates £500 to £1500 – very very not cheap when BT Infinity (aka BT’s VDSL2 product) is only £38/month inc line rental.”

I wonder why they make you pay all that upfront, instead of perhaps charging a higher line rental for the fibre over a fixed period say? Also, if they are intending to give the option of extending the fibre all the way to the home, could that not be done upfront for an area in order to lower the costs involved? Otherwise will they be buying and installing hardware in the cabinet that may not be needed at all?

“FWIW, I’m in SW London and have Infinity over here and it’s pretty good. Attainable rate is 90Mb/33Mb, sync is 80/20.”

Do you know how far you are from the cabinet and what the maximum distance is likely to be for any one connection there?

Funny how there has been no mention of this sort of upgrade potential in the discussions I have seen here. I’m in an area covered by Telstra HFC (though I do not use it myself) so I doubt I would get FTTN under the Coalition’s plan in any case, and there has been no word from the opposition on how they intend to provide open access to HFC, how much that would cost and whether third party ISPs would be interested. If I had the option I would pay slightly more per month for FTTH over my current ASDL2+ service (which syncs at about 5Mbps/1Mbps) but not for VDSL2 or HFC.

Thanks Matt for that link to that article. 500 to 1500 pounds is about $750 to $2250 in our money, so it’s for businesses and the rich, well that might be Ok for MalcolmTurnball hes a millionair and he can proberly right it off a business expensive, but for the rest of use forget it. You end up with a 2 class system, the haves and have nots.
I lived in SW London in Richmond is that near you Matt, I loved Que Gardens and Richmond Park with the deers and the girls were fun too. I do miss the pub scene, ours pubs suck.

WhatsNew: I think I’m reasonably fortunate – about 100m from the cabinet would be my poor estimate of cable length. Might be a little bit longer than that. The area I’m in has some big sporting fields around it, so I suspect if you were on the other side of one of these and were on the same cabinet you could be easily 800m away. But this is really total speculation as I don’t know where other cabinets are in the area – ie, I don’t know where the boundary for my cabinet might be.

Keep in mind that the costs quoted are just estimates at this stage and I don’t think that ‘Fibre On Demand’ is out of trial, so we don’t yet know what payment options might be available.

MikeK: Ahh, very nice spot! I used to work in Richmond. Currently based around the Mortlake area which gives pretty quick access to Richmond Park. Agreed on the pub front – as an Australian (in UK ~ 5 years), I have to say that the UK pubs are way better than ours! :)

I think due to the different nature of the UK there is a viable commercial market for broadband in most regions.
For example, large regional universities. IT reliant businesses being spread across the country, even in remote rural areas. As a newly arrived Brit, it seems to me Australia has concentrated it’s businesses and seats of learning much more in the main cities and eastern coastal belt.
The public private partnership seems more developed in the UK too.
The private sector, for what ever reason, has failed on innovative infrastructure in this country. They are flying miners in and out, and billeting them in dongas because the regions that are generating billions of dollars in mining revenue have no hospitals, no cinemas, no houses and often no proper road network.

The reason for fly in fly out is obvious. It costs a lot of money to provide the facilities you list (and you did not mention schools or tertiary education). And mines have a habit of running out of the resource being mined. At least they have dongas. In the old days it was tents and there isn’t much evidence of them around Hill End these days.

It’s true; as long as you can cherry pick and exclude finland (5m) sweden (10m) and portugal (10m) from Europe, then yes, they can strive to have a better internet connection than Europe.

Just aim for gigabit, and that way you can ignore France, Germany and everyone else and their piddly 100 megabit services. Oh wait, there is small scale deployment of gigabit in Parisian arrondissement. So I guess you have to ignore France too.

Obviously, none of these networks are ubiquitous (some of them aren’t even close). It is just a weird statement for a politician to be making. Then again, it is probably quite normal to try to compare yourself to Europe in the UK – and I completely support the plan of aiming for gigabit+ networks as the future of broadband – I just hate politician speak!

“And in doing so we will create the conditions whereby if fibre to the home is still the best way to get the very highest speeds, private sector companies will invest to provide it.”

This statement is baffling for two reasons. Firstly, there is no ‘if’. Fibre to the home is the best way to get the very highest speeds, and will remain the best way.

Secondly, there is no incentive for private companies to invest unless there is a minimum return on that investment. Which hardly matches the current aims of the NBN of ubiquitous high speed broadband.

““But where their Lordships are wrong is to say my focus is on any particular speed: today’s superfast is tomorrow’s superslow. Just as the last government was wrong to hang its hat on 2 Mbps speeds, we must never fall into the trap of saying any speed is “enough.”

This was one of the few wise comments that stood out to me. How many times do we have to watch Coalition MPs repeat this mistake, before they start to grasp the exponential rate at which broadband speeds are increasing? Saying any figure is enough, is just setting yourself up for hilarious quotes in the media a decade from now.

What a hypocrite. I’m glad I didn’t watch that on TV. I may well have thrown a brick at my plasma out of frustration! Just reading the transcript nearly made me through my iPad out the window. I really need to control my temper, but Malcolm’s relentless bullshit isn’t helping.

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